On Tue, 3 Jan 2017 16:07:44 -0800, you wrote to Freelance Traveller:

>On 1/3/2017 2:37 PM, Jonathan Clark wrote:
>>
>> FWIW (which may be nothing), I really disliked this bit. IMHO Traveler
>> is supposed
>> to be set in a more-or-less technological universe. This explanation is
>> basically magic.
>> Or, you've just invented a different sort of psionics.
>
>That struck me as the poster's intent, really.
>"I want mystery, I want inexplicable, I want strange and wonderful."
>The thing is, the sort of people who tend to read and/or play SF want
>/explanations/ for things.  They want reproducible results.  And so on.

Yes, that's sort of the space I wanted these to be in - we don't know
everything, we may never know every thing, and here's something that
we don't know yet. Maybe next week, some serene nerd in a lab
somewhere will figure out what's going on, and there will be just that
little bit less mystery in the universe. I don't intend them to be
impossible to explain, just inexplicable within the current (TU)
framework of knowledge.

Hell, maybe they're just zuchai crystals that formed with impurities
making them unsuitable as power modulators for jump drives. Or maybe
if you try to use one in a jump drive, you'll discover you have a
Shipstone. Or something.